JP3064379B2 - Facsimile machine - Google Patents

Description

Description: TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a facsimile apparatus having a memory transmission function.

[Related Art] Generally, as a facsimile apparatus having a memory transmission function, image information of a document read by a scanner is temporarily stored in an image information memory as a file, and then transmitted at a time designated in advance by an operator and transmitted. It is known that the result is displayed on its own plotter and transmitted to delete the file.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, according to such a conventional apparatus, the file stored in the image information memory is deleted regardless of the transmission result. For this reason, there has been a problem that when the transmission has failed, or even when the transmission has succeeded, if it is necessary to transmit the image information having the same content later, the original must be read again by the scanner.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to solve such a problem and to provide a facsimile apparatus which can save the trouble of reading a document again.

[Means for Solving the Problems] The present invention relates to a facsimile apparatus having a memory transmission function, wherein the file before transmission is used as a normal file, and a memory address and management information of the file are stored for each file. A recovery file table for rearranging and storing the file numbers of the files after the transmission operation as recovery files for each file number in ascending order of storage.

[Operation] In the above configuration, before transmission, the image information is stored in the image information memory as a file, and the file division is stored in the normal file table as a normal file. After transmission, the file is not erased, but is continuously stored in the image information memory, while the file division of the file stored in the normal file table is changed to the recovery file, and the file number is stored in the recovery file table. The data is rearranged and stored in the oldest order to prepare for retransmission.
This makes it easier to detect the file when retransmitting the image information later, and also makes it easier to manage the recovery file, such as erasing the file when it is full and searching for the next file to be deleted. Become.

Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 shows the configuration of a facsimile apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention.

In FIG. 1, a control unit 1 performs a control process of each unit of the facsimile apparatus and a facsimile transmission control procedure process, and a system memory 2 executes a control process program and a process program executed by the control unit 1. The control unit 1 stores various data necessary for the
Of the work area. Control memory 3
Stores various types of management information, which will be described later, unique to the facsimile apparatus, and has a normal file table 4 and a recovery file table 5, which will be described later. The scanner 6 is for reading a document at a predetermined resolution, and the plotter 7 is for recording and outputting an image at a predetermined resolution. The operation display unit 8 is for operating the facsimile machine, and includes various operation keys and various displays. The encoding / decoding section 9 encodes and compresses the image information and decodes the encoded and compressed image information into the original image information. This is for storing the image information for each transmission in the state as described above as each file. A group 3 facsimile modem (hereinafter referred to as a modem) 11 has a low-speed model function (V.21 modem) for exchanging transmission procedure signals and a high-speed modem function (V.29 modem, V.29 modem, V) mainly for exchanging image information. .27ter modem). The network control device 12 is for connecting the facsimile machine to a public telephone line network and has an automatic transmission / reception function. These control unit 1, system memory 2, control memory 3, scanner 6, plotter 7, operation display unit 8, encoding / decoding unit 9, image information memory 10, modem 11, and network control unit 12 The exchange of data between these elements is mainly performed via the system bus 13.

Here, the normal file table 4 provided in the control memory 3 stores data relating to the file of the image information stored in the image information memory 10, and has a configuration as shown in FIG. Has become.

In the figure, the file No. is automatically designated by the control unit 1 to identify the file of the image information in the image information memory 10. Each storage area 14 of the normal file table 4 has a storage area for storing the following three data items relating to the file identified by each file number.

The first storage area 14a contains data indicating whether or not image information is stored in a predetermined file in the image information memory 10, and, if stored, whether the file is classified as a normal file or a recovery file. Is an area for storing.

Here, the normal file means a file before transmission among the files in the image information memory 10, and the recovery file means a transmitted file. If there is no image information in the file, a display without image information, for example, 0 is displayed.

The second storage area 14b is an area for storing the address data of the file in the image information memory 10.

The third storage area 14c is an area for storing an address indicating management information for a predetermined file in the job management table 15 shown in FIG.

As shown in the figure, the job management table 15 includes file number information for identifying a file storing image information, transmission mode information indicating the transmission mode of the image information, destination telephone number information, and time designation transmission mode. The transmission time information, the transmission result information and the number of times of calling in the case are stored for each file.

The memory transmission operation at the designated transmission time in the facsimile apparatus thus configured will be described with reference to the flowchart shown in FIG.

First, the operator sets a document to be transmitted on the scanner 6 and selects a memory transmission button on the operation display unit 8 (not shown). Subsequently, after performing a predetermined procedure such as designation of a transmission time, input of a telephone number using a one-touch dial key or a numeric keypad, and, if necessary, input of a name of a destination, a start button is pressed. As a result, the scanner 6 starts reading the original, the read image information is input to the facsimile apparatus (process 20), and the image information is stored in the file as long as there is room in the image information memory 10 (Y in decision 21). Is stored in the image information memory 10 (process 22). In this case, the image information is compressed and stored by the normal encoding / decoding unit 9 in order to increase the storage efficiency. At this time, the control unit 1 assigns a file number to the file in which the image information is stored, and stores the file number, transmission mode, destination telephone number, transmission time, and number of calls in the job management table shown in FIG. Remember at 15. At the same time, the file division of this file is set as a normal file, and data relating to the stored file shown in FIG. 2 is stored in the storage area 14 in the normal file table 4 (process 23).

For example, if a file in the image information memory 10 that stores image information for one transmission is designated as file No. 1, image information is stored in file No. 1 in the first storage area 14a. The file division is stored as a normal file in order to indicate that the image information is transmitted before the image information is transmitted. In the second storage area 14b, the file No.
Address data of the image information memory 10 in which one file is stored is stored. The third storage area 14c stores the address data of the job management table 15 of the control memory 3 in which the management information on the file No. 1 is stored.

After storing the image information as a file, the control unit 1 outputs a list describing the file number and the destination telephone number from the facsimile machine. Thereafter, at the time designated by the operator, the facsimile apparatus automatically sends the telephone number registered in the job management table 15 of the control memory 3 to the line via the network control device 12 and stores the telephone number. The transmitted document is transmitted to the memory (process 24).

When performing the time-specified transmission, if the transmission fails because the destination and the telephone line are not connected at the specified time, the transmission succeeds according to the call count information in the job management table 15,
In addition, a plurality of calls are made until a predetermined number of calls are made.

After the transmission of the image information is completed, the transmission result, the file number and the destination telephone number are output to the plotter 7 as a transmission result (process 25). Further, the file division of the transmitted file in the normal file table 4 is changed from the normal file to the recovery file (processing
26). At the same time, if there is room in the storage area of the recovery file table 5 shown in FIG. 4 (Y in decision 27), the storage area 16 of the recovery file table 5 is changed to the recovery file regardless of the success or failure of transmission. The file numbers of the files are sequentially stored (step 28).

If there is no room in the storage area of the recovery file table 5 (N in decision 27), the recovery file table 5
Then, the file No. of the oldest file among the files which have become the recovery files normally stored in the first storage area 16a is deleted (process 29). Then, the order from the second oldest file No. is moved forward and the file No. is stored in the last storage area 16m of the recovery file table 5. Here, when the file number is deleted from the recovery file table, the normal file table 4 stores that there is no file (processing 3
0).

Next, when retransmission is performed (Y in decision 31), the operator operates the button of the operation display unit 8 based on the file No. previously output by the plotter 7, and retransmits the file. (No. 32). By this designation, the control unit 1 firstly starts the recovery file table 5
Check whether the specified file No. is stored. If the file number is stored in the recovery file table 5, the file number is deleted from the recovery file table 5 (processing 3
3). By changing the file division of the erased file No. in the normal file table 4 from the recovery file to the normal file, the image information accumulated in the file of this file No. can be read again by the scanner 6. Retransmission can be performed without any processing (repeated from step 23).

Further, in the storage area 16 of the recovery file table 5 in which the erased file No. is stored, as a process for storing the file No. of the file which has become a recovery file thereafter, the erased file No. The next file No. is entered, and the file No. is rearranged by successively moving up the next file No. Here, the storage area 16 of the recovery file table 5 vacated by this processing is displayed as 0, for example.

In this case, a telephone number can be newly set, and the time for reading the original by the scanner 6 can be omitted when the same image information is transmitted to another destination. Further, when a file number to be retransmitted is designated, the content of the image information may be printed out to confirm the content of the transmission.

Next, the operation of the control unit 1 when the image information memory 10 runs out of room during the accumulation operation will be described.

If there is no room in the image information memory 10 during the storage operation of new image information (N in decision 21), and no more image information can be accumulated, if there is no room in the recovery file table 5 (decision 27). In contrast to this, the control unit 1 deletes the file number of the oldest recovery file in the recovery file table 5 at that time, regardless of whether there is room or not (process 34). When the file number is deleted from the recovery file table 5, the normal file table 4 stores that no file exists. Further, the image information stored in the file of the image information memory 10 to which the file number is assigned is deleted (process 35), and the image information is continuously stored in the empty file. .
Thereafter, if the image information memory 10 becomes insufficient, the same operation is repeated.

In this case, if a file stored as a recovery file but which is not desired to be erased is subjected to erasure prohibition processing such as a delete lock flag on the file number of the file in the recovery file table 5, the file is always in the image information. Can be stored in the storage memory 10.

When the operator outputs the transmission history to the plotter 7, the control unit 1 checks the normal file table 4 and takes out the file of the file number whose file division is stored as the normal file in the normal file table 4. Then, the file classification and the file number are displayed, and the job management table 15 corresponding to the file number is displayed.
, And extracts and displays data such as a transmission result and a destination telephone number. Furthermore, when it is desired to output the transmission history of the transmitted file whose file division is the recovery file, the file in which the file division is stored as the recovery file is extracted from the normal file table 4. Then, data such as a file classification, a file number, a transmission result, a destination telephone number and the like are extracted and displayed by the same processing as that for a normal file. Thereby, the latest transmission history of the image information before and after transmission can be viewed.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the present invention, before transmission, image information can be stored as a file in the image information memory, and the file section can be stored as a normal file in the normal file table. In addition, after transmission, regardless of the success or failure of transmission, the file is continuously stored in the image information memory, while the file division of the file stored in the normal file table is changed to a recovery file,
The file numbers are sorted and stored in the recovery file table in the order of chronological order of storage to prepare for retransmission, making it easier to detect files when retransmitting image information later, and to fill up the files. This makes it easier to manage the recovery file, such as erasure when it becomes unnecessary or searching for the next file to be erased.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a facsimile apparatus showing one embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a schematic view showing an example of a normal file table, FIG. 3 is a schematic view showing an example of a job management table, FIG. FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram showing an example of a recovery file table, and FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a memory transmission operation of the facsimile apparatus. 1 ... Control unit, 2 ... System memory, 3 ... Control memory, 4 ... Normal file table, 5 ... Recovery file table, 6 ... Scanner, 7 ... Plotter,
8 operation display unit, 9 coding / decoding unit, 10 image information memory, 11 modem, 12 network controller, 13
System bus.

Claims (4)

(57) [Claims] A facsimile apparatus for storing image information read by a scanner as a file in a memory for image information, wherein the file is distinguished between before and after a transmission operation, and a memory address and management information of the file are stored. A facsimile apparatus comprising: a normal file table for storing for each file; and a recovery file table for storing the file numbers of the files after the transmission operation as recovery files by rearranging the file numbers for each file number in ascending order of storage. 2. A facsimile apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising means for changing a file number stored as a recovery file to a normal file section according to an operator's designation. 3. The file system according to claim 1, wherein when the number of files increases and the capacity of the image information memory becomes insufficient, the file with the file number stored as the recovery file is deleted to compensate for the lack. Facsimile machine. 4. The facsimile apparatus according to claim 1, wherein when viewing the transmission history of the file, the file is printed out separately for each file division.